CAIRO: Organizers of the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt said Wednesday they were set to break the attendance record for the event, but conceded that conscripts from the country s military had helped fill stadiums.
Military supporters have become a regular fixture at games played at five Egyptian cities in the Sept. 24-Oct. 16 tournament, with thousands of young men in brightly colored tracksuits turning up to each match in columns of army trucks.
FIFA vice president Jack Warner said attendance so far had reached 1.15 million people after 50 matches and was likely to exceed the record of 1.19 million, set at the previous World Cup in Canada two years ago.
He said a new attendance record would stand regardless of how the stadiums are filled.
What is the big issue whether the (conscripts) come in tracksuits – yellow, red or green? For me the most important issue is that they are there, Warner said.
Hany Abo Rida, head of the event s local organizing committee, said that tickets for attending conscripts had been paid for by the army and the police.
The fact is that these soldiers are human beings and they have the right to attend. They are (doing) their military service and we are honoring them by their attendance, he said.
Two matches remain in the tournament: Ghana plays four-time champion Brazil in the final Friday, while Costa Rica and Hungary will contend for third place.
Warner said that matches played so far were being reviewed for potential refereeing errors, after 261 yellow cards and 27 red cards had been shown in 50 matches – among the highest ever since the tournament began in 1977.
I know there have been concerns about the referees and the amount of red cards and yellow cards which have been issued, and I think the concerns are genuine and legitimate, Warner said.
We are now reviewing all the games to see in what ways we can improve the referees.
